Vienna holidays can be as long or as brief as you want them to be.
There are impressive buildings, wide avenues, music and culture along with a celebrated cafe society.
We decided on a brief outing for the reason that we were in Prague on a short break and we thought we might as well have a day in the city of Vienna. This is not, I suspect, the first thought in most people’s minds when they visit Prague but we thought it was possible. So we did it.
We arrived just about lunchtime and there was a Underground station just around the corner from where the coach dropped us. It was incredibly easy to acquire a ticket and find the right train to take us to the centre. We chose the station in the vicinity of the Opera House, seeing that this is the stop to take all 3 of the hop on hop off buses. Because we only had 6 hours this was the best method to see as much as possible, quickly and then get off to see some things in more detail.
Our first route was to see the Schonenberg Palace. We debated whether or not to go into the palace but decided it would take up too much time. As with all hop on hop off buses we had a commentary by the use of our earphones and I do think this is an tremendous way to get a overview of any city.
Many of the buildings were magnificent and the broad streets and avenues made it simple to imagine how the city would have appeared devoid of all the modern day traffic. I don’t know much as regards the ruling families of Austria except lots of of them were Hapsburgs and the most famed female member must be Marie Antionette, and of the others Archduke Franz Ferdinand whose murder in Sarajevo sparked off the first world war.
Between buses we wandered around the Opera House region and even toyed with the idea of having coffee and sacha torte at the Hotel Sacha. However there were lengthy queues and the service was unhurried therefore we gave it a miss.
The next excursion was the immediate city centre, which gave us the chance to see the main buildings, mostly State and cultural but again it gave us a good taste of the city. As we neared the conclusion of this tour we were in an old area of the city where the streets were so narrow that the bus could only just get by.
This is where Mozart had lived for a a small number of years and composed The Barber of Seville there. We got off the bus at this point and enjoyed a little while exploring the narrow streets and squares.
Eventually the temperature got too much and we spied a very busy ice cream parlour and we ate it sitting resting on the steps of a statue to Guttenberg, this appeared to be a popular place to sit.
All to soon it was time to catch the Underground back to our coach pick up point.
I don’t even pretend to have experienced the genuine Vienna in such a short time but brief visits give you an over all taste of a city and give you an impression of whether or not you would like to spend more time there.
I am happy we had our day in Vienna but I haven’t made my mind up so far.
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